TAO RESPONSIVE// Submission and Evaluation

My response to this brief has been bold and used the main icon of Taoism as its centrepiece. The circular logo actually started as a small icon or accent in a very text heavy logo I created for the first submission, the client responded to this and asked if I could take that shape and use it to construct an icon only logo. The logo is simple and bold and works in a range of colours although I have suggested this orange and white design as preferable. The Logo is also designed to work within the company name ‘TAO Leadership’, by replacing the ‘O’. I applied the logo on some business cards for the benefit of the client to help contextualise the idea for him. I hope that this way my design is looked upon more favourably amongst the competition. I have also shown the logo as part of a company sign and how it could fit on a letter as a header or a footer. The first submission for this brief was a very text heavy corporate design with a lick of colour that I thought would be enough to excite business consultants. I was wrong and they criticised the text heavy design but liked a small icon I had used in the centre, this became the basis for my second submission which works much better as a friendly and approachable logo. The good thing about this logo as expressed in the feedback is the subtle use of Taoism’s iconography, without making it super obvious or tacky. The Yin and Yang sign is used frequently by take-away sign makers with no style but I think I’ve managed to give the logo some distance from that by making it a stylised version with a good amount of white space to compliment it. The logo also looks a bit like a face, something which people can subtly pick up on as connotations for approachability and friendliness. It was a challenge for me to go ahead and submit this logo becuase I’m still prone to over-cook design, always thinking that more is better, when often cutting back an producing something very basic can be the way forward. I’m going to take this lesson and apply it to more and more work, becuase I think it allows me to step back and think of directions I can take a concept instead of directions I can take a design.